April 21, 2010

The event took place at the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville, and featured former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) as its keynote speaker. Tancredo, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, said that Americans are "going to have to pray that we can hold on to this country."

He added, referring to President Obama: "If his wife says Kenya is his homeland, why don't we just send him back?"

Pastor Stan Craig, of the Choice Hills Baptist Church, was particularly angry about the state of Washington, saying he "was trained to defend the liberties of this nation." He declared that he was prepared to "suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do."...

Dan Gonzales, who Chairs the Constitution Party in Florida, asserted that "this is the end of America right here," and if the Tea Partiers "don't get to work we're going to be fighting in the streets."...

Another speaker, ["apparently William Gheen, President of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC"] claimed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is gay, noted:

I'm a tolerant person. I don't care about your private life, Lindsey, but as our U.S. Senator I need to figure out why you're trying to sell out your own countrymen, and I need to make sure you being gay isn't it.

That's all quite awful. It plays into the hands of those who would like to squelch the Tea Party movement.

It doesn't play into our hands. The Tea Party has a lot of good and honest (although perhaps misguided or mis-lead) souls.

It also has a ring of scoundrels who are playing this movement like a tin drum.

I would urge those who think this movement is the be all and end all to write up a membership book with rules and qualifications for joining and then get busy before this mess lands on the public doorstep.

Yes,Obama and the rabid left are charging towards the November goal line trying to change as much of America as they can into a European socialist state and the vast majority that is opposed should just be quiet and civil...

yeah.

Everything I know about political civility I learned from the left over the last 9 years.

People are starting to play the lefts game and the left doesn't like it,poor babies.

Sorry but that doesn't sound nearly as bad as the absolutely insane rhetoric I've heard spouted by various Democrats and left-wingers over the years. Are all liberals required to police and denounce and renounce the rhetoric of their more radical fellow travellers? No. As I understand it, the "tea party" movement is not a centralized political entity nor is it a political party. Therefore the speeches and ideas of one person or group obviously doesn't reflect the beliefs of another.

The left wing is desperate to slime dissidents. Expect their efforts to become even more desperate as November approaches.

These anecdotes are of cretins IMO. No excuse for this kind of blame game. Though I do believe someone, in govt, should be held accountable for the financial crisis.

You know not one person was fired due to errors after 911! The CIA turd guaranteed WMD would be found in Iraq and then he got a Freedom Medal from the president he embarrassed with his slam dunk certainty.

Jeez - we fire sports coaches for failing but don't hold the Beltway elites accountable when they don't do their jobs!! Now, state and city pension funds are busted- whose fault is that? We the People?

So yeah these a-holes depicted are despicable but let's be honest Althouse, our country is in turmoil. I can feel it - like waiting for the next shoe to drop.

I have never seen a situation where people just blurt out what is on their mind. People are not happy and let you know it.

Some of that does cross the line. "Fighting in the Streets" and "get my gun", as well as the Kenya line, are the kinds of things I'd expect to hear from one or two people in the crowd. After all, it takes all kinds, and in any group of partisans, some are going to sound a little extreme. But in those individuals' case, it's just blowing off steam, amongst like-minded comrades, usually.

But this kind of talk from the podium does harm to the movement. It's not what the Tea Party is about. Overheated rhetoric like this is unhelpful and unhealthy, and, since no one really believes it's time to start the Revolution, all it does is provide cute videos for Keith Olbermann to look "concerned" about.

Speaking of "fighting in the Streets," "suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do," and "I need to figure out why you're trying to sell out your own countrymen, and I need to make sure you being gay isn't it"...

Did anyone see the video of the police crackdown on the press outside the White House protest against DADT?

Meade said..."AHDH: I would urge you to start with Articles IX and X."

I'm sure you mis-typed when you wrote "articles" as I figure you are referring to the 9th and 10th amendments commonly referred to as being part of the bill of rights....neither refer to "limited constitutional government" but to the limits of federal powers in regards to the states...something of a significant difference in the context of where this little back and forth started.

The key phrase being "as filtered through TPM." I stopped looking in on Josh Marshall's rantings quite some time ago because I got tired of reading all the various ways he can say "Republicans ba-a-a-a-d, Democrats go-o-o-o-od, Republicans ba-a-a-a-d, Democrats go-o-o-o-d."

If he was openly gay, it would not be an issue, but because he is secretly gay and is trying to remain so, he is open to being extorted to do things not representative of the voters who elected him.

That is a legitimate issue and the Democrats made it a legitimate issue when they began outing secretly gay Republicans. They made it a legitimate issue when they attempted to extort the vote of Eric Massa and forced his resignation from the US Congress.

A secretly-gay Senator is susceptible to being bribed or extorted in order to keep his sexual practices secret.

That's a legitimate issue with regard to Lindsey Graham.

If he would come out, and admit to his voters that he is gay, and remove the threat that he is being extorted by those on the left to get him to support their legislation - legislation his constituents overwhelmingly oppose - then this issue could be laid to rest.

Lindsay Graham - like Eric Massa before him - appears to have been compromised by the Democrat Party and it appears that he is facing extortion to get him to support their agenda.

He needs to address this issue, or the issue of his being a closeted gay will continue.

"If his wife says Kenya is his homeland, why don't we just send him back?"

This is political hyperbole, and I'm surprised, Ann, that you would be so transparent as to follow TPM's lead to suggest that it's anything "troothiery."

Barack Obama's wife did, in fact, slip and say that Kenya is Barack Obama's "homeland." Yes, it was a gaffe, and yes, people in politics make jokes about the other side's gaffe's all the time.

I'm starting to see a pattern of you looking for ways and looking for reasons to bash the Tea Party.

Why don't you report on your own experience? Why are you regurgitating TPM talking points. TPM isn't an unbiased source of information about Republicans or Tea Party candidates, or are you claiming they are?

Your pattern of sliming the Tea Party with your choice of sources and your bloodying up of photographs of Tea Party events is becoming quite transparent, Ann.

It's also pretty tiresome.

I've turned your advertising back off to punish your advertisers for your lack of even-handedness.

"I'm trying to figure out why Tancreado keeps getting invited to these events. His signature issue is immigration and that says little regarding the size of government or taxes."

Says you.

Illegal immigration is why wages are stagnant in the country and why unemployment is so high. It is why the federal government is having to spend enormous sums in unemployment compensation.

Illegal immigration is why health care costs are skyrocketing in the country, since hospitals are forced to treat illegal immigrants without respect to whether they have insurance or can pay.

Illegal immigration is why our jails are overcrowded, costing us billions in incarceration costs as we have to deal with the violent drug gangs crossing our border with impunity.

Illegal immigration is one of the primary drivers of almost every issue of contention between the political parties today and absolutely is a driver of out-of-control government spending.

Democrats want to encourage illegal immigration because they believe that's where the growth in their electoral prospects are going to come from and they don't much give a rat's ass if they bankrupt the country doing it.

Republicans want to enforce our laws and secure our borders; and a result of that will be a reduction in necessary spending on a whole host of side issues.

That's why Tom Tancredo keeps getting invited to "these things." Tom Tancredo believes that our elected officials ought to be forced to live up to their oaths of office and enforce our laws.

Knox I did not see anyone in the anti-war demonstrations talk about taking guns to Washington. I approve of protesting the government and Wall street policy, but not threatening violence-- that crosses the thin red line.

What you have is people with all sorts of other agendas getting invited to speak on tea party issues.

They don't care about the tea party goals. They want an audience. And they're going to play the audience as they think the audience wants to be played. But it's not in their hearts, and it comes out in a version of right wing almost parody.

This is a movement of the people, so why have others who are leaders with established other agendas?

Get people who are unknowns but are good speakers and have the heart of the movement. Raise up new folks to be the public faces, men and women who get it. Tea parties are going to absolutely stumble every time they allow themselves to be co-opted by other agendas.

"During the run-up to the Civil War South Carolina was described as being "too small to be a republic but too large to by an asylum."

During the run-up to the next civil war, it probably won't be much different.

Oh ... you don't see this as the run-up? Well, back then they probably didn't either.

I'm a history buff. We've had two civil wars on this land. The first civil war was the one in which our forefathers - the proud founders of this country - took up arms against their government and started killing all government officials and representatives attempting to enforce the "laws" of King George III.

In the second civil war, Abraham Lincoln lost a political fight over states rights and decided to use the United States military to kill those Americans who disagreed with him politically on this issue.

That decision cost him his life.

Political violence in the United States has a rich and storied history. Historically, it has been the means by which major political disagreements have been solved - especially by those unable to win with their arguments.

There was much political violence required to guarantee black people their freedom - first from slavery, and then from American apartheid. Just ask George Wallace.

George Washington didn't think political violence was out of bounds. Neither did Paul Revere, or Thomas Jefferson. They believed that if the cause was just then violence may indeed be required. That it was every man's duty to their fellow man to fight tyranny and despotism.

Today, we get the weak tea of Bill Clinton, who expects Americans to meekly accept those crumbs doled out by the passing regime.

We have a proud history of dealing very harshly with those tyrants who would yoke us.

I think the progressives are missing the point that main street America is getting agitated. If they are allowed to get agitated enough, if they are ignored and continue to be demonized, people will start to get hurt, then people will start to die.

This progression is sad and scarry and nothing I support, but it is inevitable in human nature. Conservatives are action people, we do things. If too many of the tea party folks give up on appropriate channels of change, they will adopt the "by any means necessary" approach just as some of the civil rights people did. And it certainly made Dr. King more recognizable as a Christian man of peace when the panthers were killing folks.

It would take a lot for me to take up arms against my government, a whole lot actually. But not all my brethern are as cool headedand hopeful as I. And hope is the key, once those folks lose hopes of achieving change through politics, especially if they become convinced that the political process is corrupt, they will become active in very direct ways.

I do not think the progressives fully grasp the situation as it is unfolding.

Meade, you should copy the comment you're replying to, especially when you are correcting something really stupid. The original commenter may delete his post, as HDHouse did with his: "Meade... Refresh my memory...where doest the term 'limited' appear in the constitution? Just curious. Or is that a convenient turn of phrase."

You had written "It's about limited constitutional government" and that was his response. You replied to the now deleted comment with "AHDH: I would urge you to start with Articles IX and X," by which I know you meant Amendments IX and X.

Anyway, HDHouse was a fool to act like you'd just made up the constitutional idea of limited government. That the federal government has limited powers is the most basic proposition of constitutional law. The federal legislative powers are enumerated (in Article I, §8), and the enumerated powers are also affirmatively limited in many ways, such as by the rights that are listed in the Bill of Rights.

At least HDHouse had the sense to delete his stupid remark, but I am reprinting it here nonetheless, because you took the time to reply and because it is such an outrage that an American citizen of any intelligence doesn't know something this fundamental.

It doesn't help, but really, does it hurt? I mean it's not like the media are giving, or will ever give, the Tea Party (or any patriotic dissenter) a break, or even a fair reading.

When the Tea Partiers actually assault people (breaking legs and giving concussions) or get arrested for threatening to kill a member of Congress - both things the left has done recently - then I'll admit things are getting out of hand.

"If one purpose of tea parties is to persuade people to support a cause, and not just whip up sentiment among the persuaded, then it does hurt."

I don't think the Tea Partiers have to persuade anyone. Barry and the Dems are doing that all by themselves. The Tea Party is just one avenue for angry Americans - liberals, conservatives, independents - to publicly voice their outrage. Come November it won't be the Tea Party running - or voting - it will be the majority that are not happy with the way things are going.

This is why the Tea Party should not endorse any candidates. The worst participants will be used against that candidate. In an open movement such ends of the spectrum will exist and there is nothing wrong with that, but the battle is for the middle and they are mostly cowardly; afraid to be tarred by strong opinion either way.

The Tea party should stay an idea and a leaderless movement. Reducing government through swaying votes should be the limit of the movement's objectives. Showing numbers and energy; letting people know how many want smaller government and will vote for it.

It's the opposite of Obamaism: its' ideas - not symbols. People - not a person.

The tea party movement is about reducing the size and intrusion of the federal government. That is all. It is not organized, it is organic. It is not Republican, it is conservative. It is like a severe cowlick, it is untamed. The R's will not co-opt the teap party, but the tea party may well co-opt the Rs.

"That the federal government has limited powers is the most basic proposition of constitutional law."

No, Ann. You're wrong.

That the federal government has limited powers is the most basic proposition of constitutional theory.

FIFY.

In actual law, and in and actual practice, the Supreme Court has granted the federal government unlimited power to regulate almost everything; to tax anything to prohibit any activity not explicitly granted in the Bill of Rights (and even some rights which are explicitly granted), and to do so with the threat of US military force backing it up.

I defy you to prove me wrong.

You're claim to be a constitutional law professor. Show me where in practice the Supreme Court has limited federal government power in any meaningful way.

A limited federal government is a cute theory that the Supreme Court rejected 200 years ago.

"That the federal government has limited powers is the most basic proposition of constitutional law."

No, Ann. You're wrong.

That the federal government has limited powers is the most basic proposition of constitutional theory.

FIFY.

In actual law, and in and actual practice, the Supreme Court has granted the federal government unlimited power to regulate almost everything; to tax anything to prohibit any activity not explicitly granted in the Bill of Rights (and even some rights which are explicitly granted), and to do so with the threat of US military force backing it up.

I defy you to prove me wrong.

You claim to be a constitutional law professor. I defy you to show me where in practice the Supreme Court has limited federal government power in any meaningful way.

A limited federal government is a cute theory that the Supreme Court rejected 200 years ago.

Our task today is to get the proper people elected such that we may codify the theory of limited federal powers in new Constitutional Amendments that the Supreme Court cannot reject.

the Kenyan ministry declaring that America has shown it's non discriminatory nature by electing a non US native born, Kenyan born Obama as President. They said it, and it is recorded in their Parliamentary minutes. I don't know if that's true or not. What I do know is that the fact that Obama's father was not a US citizen when Obama was born precludes him from being a Natural Born Citizen, and he is therefore ineligible since he owed allegiance to a foreign power at birth. Of course, even Con Law profs like Ms. Althouse and the "brilliant" Volohk have blinders on when it comes to the issue of Obama's eligibility as a Natural Born Citizen. Neither will provide the proof that Natural Born Citizens are simply born in the US w/o respect to the nationality of the parents (the 14th Amendment does not contain the words "Natural Born Citizen", and Wong Kim Ark was found to be a citizen, not a NBC). It's really shamefull that our "intelligista" is absent on this issue. There is a plethora of proof that Natural Born Citizens by the original intent of the framers are those born in the US of US Citizen parentssssss. The framers didn't study Vattel you say? Isn't the Bill of Rights all about Natural Law. How about this recent discovery?

FOXNews.com - George Washington Racks Up Late Fees at NYC Library

And of course they fail to report the significance of that discovery. Within "LON" is the definition of Natural Born Citizen: Born in a country of parents who are it's citizens.

Critical mass is forming. We will not go away, and are not scared of the "birther" insults coming from the morally, and intellectually corrupt Left. When this sees the light of day, the 4th estate, congress, and the intelligista will be exposed as what they are, treasonous statists.

Note that the article written about Charles Evans Hughes was written in 1916, only 18 years after WKA (1898) and the 14th Amendment (1866). It never even mentions those 2 events, much less considers them as changing the meaning of Natural Born Citizen.

"For the record, who a Senator sleeps with is not my business. How he votes is. I object to Graham's votes, not who he pokes."

The Democrats have, unfortunately, made it an issue I'm afraid.

It is an issue if Graham is being extorted by the Democrat Party to vote the way he is voting so that they keep his gay secret.

If he was out, this wouldn't be an issue.

He is a closeted gay who, some suspect, is being extorted by Democrats to vote a certain way in precisely the same way that the Democrats extorted Eric Massa and forced his resignation.

Closeted gays are a problem in American politics. And that is why the left began outing closeted gay Republicans (but not outing gay Democrats). They created this extortion possibility and are using it as a means to their political ends.

Democrats are blackmailing closeted gay Republicans like Lindsey Graham to get them to support legislation they would not otherwise support.

To that extent, and in that context, nobody really cares that Lindsey Graham chooses to suckle other men's penises and swallow their semen. That's his icky business.

It's that he's doing so secretly and opening himself up to the extortion of the Democrat Party that is the legitimate issue for South Carolinians to consider.

Ann Althouse said.......when you are correcting something really stupid. The original commenter may delete his post, as HDHouse did with his: "Meade... Refresh my memory...where doest the term 'limited' appear in the constitution? Just curious. Or is that a convenient turn of phrase."

"AHDH: I would urge you to start with Articles IX and X," by which I know you meant Amendments IX and X. ...HDHouse was a fool to act like you'd just made up the constitutional idea of limited government. ... an outrage that an American citizen of any intelligence doesn't know something this fundamental."

1. I stand by my observation that the term "LIMITED" does NOT appear in the Constitution. I've actually done a word check and it ain't there..particularly in Amendments 9 and 10 Meade noted.

I wasn't outraged over the concept of limited government, heck that it pretty elementary..they even teach it in law school...

What set this off, other than the silliness-o-meter of "its bad but not that bad worse - or did some tea partyer decide to gas infants" (opening comment) was Meade's interjection of "its about limited constitutional government"...other than being an unclear phrase (comma needed perhaps?) i merely asked where in the constitution the term "limited" appeared...then someone must have spilled coffee in the kitchen or something and all hell broke loose.

The original point here Ann (and Meade) is that the Tea Party has taken on some sort of fundemental romantic vision or sincere and gentle folk battling to save the constitution from the claws of an eagle gone amuck. Others think that the rhetoric and clarion calls ringing from these lawn chairs are a threat to the constitution.

You can get snotty all you want and I am hurt but in truth, I don't care much past the annoyance.

I'm reminded about the smug musicology joke about the student who stood up and raved about the composer Y.D.K Squatte to which the professor threw him out of the class with the admonishment that this was a school of higher learning and it was Bach and Beethoven or the highway...but before you leave, dear student...what does the YDK stand for to which the student replied "you don't know"?

They seem to have gathered the most loud-mouthed twits they could find in one place and called it a Tea Party. As others have noted, the rhetoric at all the other Tea Parties is pretty restrained, but the noise coming from the Left during any of the demonstrations against the last administration was worse than what Ann is posting here.

Don't know which way Lindsey Graham swings, nor do I care. I do know he's so damned eager to be a Demo, he ought to quit flying under false colors and make the switch. How SC can keep this twerp in the Senate is a mystery to me.

New "Hussein" Ham said...

"During the run-up to the Civil War South Carolina was described as being "too small to be a republic but too large to by an asylum."

During the run-up to the next civil war, it probably won't be much different.

Oh ... you don't see this as the run-up? Well, back then they probably didn't either.

I'm a history buff. We've had two civil wars on this land. The first civil war was the one in which our forefathers - the proud founders of this country - took up arms against their government and started killing all government officials and representatives attempting to enforce the "laws" of King George III.

In the second civil war, Abraham Lincoln lost a political fight over states rights and decided to use the United States military to kill those Americans who disagreed with him politically on this issue.

You may be right, you aren't the first I've heard say this feels more like the 1850s than the 1960s. In any case, on the subject of civil wars, you missed the one between 1966 and 1975. If you don't think it was a civil war, you were living someplace else at the time. We're suffering from the effects of it today, given the current administration and the leadership in Congress - useful idiots, all.

On the issue of SC, one quarter of all the slaves in the country, according to the 1860 census, lived in Charleston county, along with Edmund Ruffin, as looney an advocate of slavery as you could find - in terms of fanaticism, the South's John Brown. Fortunately, when he heard about Appomattox, he did the country a favor and wrapped himself in the Stars and Bars and proceeded to blow what passed for his brains out.

Wow, Michelle said "homeland" when she should have said "ancestral homeland." Quick, let's use that to defend the blatantly racist "Go back to Africa!" comments.

And of all the closeted homosexuals likely in Congress to blackmail, doesn't it seem like Sen. Graham would be the one with the least to lose, with no marriage or family to shame by outing him?

Anyway, I am shocked - shocked I tell ya! - to find people here defending open racism, homophobia, and calls for violence at the tea parties. As I have learned here, those things have absolutely no place in these wholesome gatherings, and it's all just a big lie from the evil MSM.

I am not one of the people who thinks all the tea partiers are racists, homophobes, violent, etc. However, a decent-sized minority definitely seem to be, and you are a perfect representative of that minority.

Does anyone else here seriously think I do more damage to the Democratic Party with my comment, than the damage idiots like Tancredo and New Ham do to the Tea Party? Seriously?

"I am not one of the people who thinks all the tea partiers are racists, homophobes, violent, etc. However, a decent-sized minority definitely seem to be ..."

That statement sets a record for the speed with which it refutes itself.

You take the actions of one or two people, and then use them to tar an entire group of people - in the same way that actual racists take a small group of - say black criminals - and use them to tar the entire black race as a race of criminals.

Tom Tancredo is a fearless American patriot. All the Manchurian shit has to do is show us his birth certificate and the so called birthers would be laughed off the stage. But as Tancredo points out again an again, The Won won't.

I would urge those who think this movement is the be all and end all to write up a membership book with rules and qualifications for joining and then get busy before this mess lands on the public doorstep.

No mass movement is perfect. But I'd like you to point that high powered microscope at left wing movements. Will you?

Rush just called Obama a thug. No qualifiers. "Obama is a thug." Is that awful? No. It's a bald statement of the truth. But in the world of the respectables it's awful to state the truth baldly. Far more important to keep your respectable ranking than to tell the truth plain.

Knox I did not see anyone in the anti-war demonstrations talk about taking guns to Washington. I approve of protesting the government and Wall street policy, but not threatening violence-- that crosses the thin red line.

Are you telling me you have never noticed protesters on the left--like the anti-G8 folks--setting fires, destroying Starbucks and the like? Or ones like PETA attacking or spray-painting people in furs? Those aren't "threats," they are violent acts.

I agree that threatening violence is bad, for multiple reasons. But the Tea Party movement (when it weren't being ignored) has been tarred as extreme and dangerous almost from the beginning.

I just want things to be presented fairly. If we're going to be making generalizations, It needs to be acknowledged that the protesters who are physically violent or destructive are consistently on the Left. Police in riot gear with tear gas, and/or bodyguards needed.

But when lefties protest, there are no media figures opining on how dangerous the Environmental Movement is, or the like. In fact, just the idea is laughable. Again, I want the Tea Party to be given the very same benefit of the doubt.

Wake me up when the Tea Party produces a film based on the assassination of the president. I won't watch it, of course, but recognize the signal at that time that's unlikely to ever hapen that things are beginning to get ugly.

See what I did there? For people who mistake comparisons with recorded events for fervent hopes, I'm comparing the lame-ass ugliness described in this post with actual ugliness and very real flights of imagination we've already seen that could be taken for appeals to weak-minded for action. That's not tu quoque argumentation, it's a metric.

Yeah, that was ugly. Nobody should be proud of that. I don't think this crowd is very representative of the vast majority of Tea Party rallies, though.

So, the media will hype this. What's new? I'm sick and tired of conservatives having to walk on eggshells to make up for a very few of our fringe when the left never, ever has to apologize or explain anyone.

I just hope and pray all of this translates into the votes. Otherwise, we are well and truly (and probably forever) fucked.

Sympathetic voting will far exceed the public size of the Tea Party for obvious reasons. The unknown is how many people will be fooled into voting for larger government again by a temporary improvement in the economy. Each time that happens, the country ratchets downward to slower growth, fewer jobs, less opportunity and reduced freedom.

New Ham wrote: I'm a history buff. We've had two civil wars on this land.

You missed the 1690 War of the Chesapeake, wherein the Protestants of Annapolis wrested control of the state away from the Catholic proprietary government in St. Mary's. My people fought for Annapolis. Does that make The Chesapeake my homeland?

I like it when people are secretly gay. I like it when people are secretly hetero. I like it when people are secretly chaste.

That's all quite awful. It plays into the hands of those who would like to squelch the Tea Party movement.

Yes and no. Footage like this may make some people avoid rallies. But even for a lot of those who choose to avoid rallies, it won't be enough to discredit the ideas behind the movement- such as smaller govt. and lower taxes.

Folks can remember that Obama sat in a church for twenty years with a Pastor who said some pretty awful stuff. Yet he got a pass by the media. Leftists can riot in the street, and yet their causes are still legitimate.

But a few offensive comments or ugly signs at a Tea Party rally, and the whole movement is supposed to be discredited? The double standard ain't gonna fly with a lot of people.

The best way to discredit the movement is for this administration's polices to work. If we see sustained growth, lower unemployment, accomplished without taxing the middle-class (as he promised), the Tea Party as a movement will die out. Happy people don't protest.

I was just in Greenville for a wedding last weekend, and I shudder when I think about the mass of southerners with khakis, polo shirts and ray bans w/ a band protesting anything. It's like they have a dress code or something.

"Knox I did not see anyone in the anti-war demonstrations talk about taking guns to Washington. I approve of protesting the government and Wall street policy, but not threatening violence-- that crosses the thin red line."

Pastor Stan Craig, of the Choice Hills Baptist Church, was particularly angry about the state of Washington, saying he "was trained to defend the liberties of this nation." He declared that he was prepared to "suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do."...

Many self-identified Christians confuse our American heritage with Christ's teachings. How did the founders of Liberty Baptist Church relate freedom to salvation? This weekend I drove past Venture Christian Church. Perhaps it was founded by venture capitalists?

I don't like many elected GOP. I think they're almost as bad as the Dems, to be honest. But right now, they're all we've got to stop the massive growth of government. I hope they're up to it. Or better yet, I just hope people pay attention and vote for very carefully.

I don't think you and I are going to agree on the role of government. But that's my perspective, for what it's worth.

"I'm sure you mis-typed when you wrote "articles" as I figure you are referring to the 9th and 10th amendments commonly referred to as being part of the bill of rights."

"You replied to the now deleted comment with "AHDH: I would urge you to start with Articles IX and X," by which I know you meant Amendments IX and X."

Both HDHouse and I owe Meade an apology. Meade was looking at the original document, which you can see here in facsimile form. The word "Article" is used for the first ten amendments (the Bill of Rights).

Yes New Ham, the fact that I think a decent sized minority of tea partiers may be racist, homophobic, and/or violent clearly means I am a KKK member and believe the Jewish people deserved the Holocaust . . . What drugs are you on again?

While we are having good clean fun here, actually I think it was worded "Article the Ninth" and "Article the Tenth" und so weiter.

And yes Pogo I've read and re-read the federalist papers a lot of times and i do admit that "limited" does appear once in the text as noted but does NOT appear in the bill of rights and that the debate around the meaning is where we get the meaning....which actually should bother the tea party folks more than a bit just on face.

house, pogo said it very well. you attempted a narrow argument that said because the word limited isn't in the constitution, the federal government is not limited. but the word does appear, so that argument is moot. however the word unlimited does not appear in the constitution or bill of rights, which by your own narrow logic means that the federal government is limited. your logic, corrected facts equals outcome you don't like.

I wasn't making a limited argument. I was making no argument whatsoever other than to observe that it would have been easy and clear to insert "limited" here and there but that wasn't the case...and as I noted the definitions grew up around through discussion (federalist papers) and debate, much of which is probably blurred in time, memory and tone of voice.

i again opine that a constitution that has a core "fight if you will' between the federal and "all the rest" turf is in place to promote debate UP TO BUT FAR SHORT of the invective and rabblerousing that comes with the lawn chairs and ice tea.

"i again opine that a constitution that has a core "fight if you will' between the federal and "all the rest" turf is in place to promote debate UP TO BUT FAR SHORT of the invective and rabblerousing that comes with the lawn chairs and ice tea."

The tea party says the federal gov is constitutionally limited in poking its nose into every conceivable part of our lives. The current government says it can, as it only has our best interests in heart, and what the constitution says doesn't matter. At what point do they have your permission to rabblerouse? And will this threshold be constant and applicable when there is a R in the White House?

Yep, it does not look pretty and it was not prety. However, "as filtered through TPM" are the key words.

My search of TPM on 'tea party' produced only this one direct report from the actual tea party. So there is over year long TPM filter.

Of course, the irony of grapping for exlusions would not prevent the Ombamatons from jumping on an opportunity to smear all Tea Party participants and simpathisers using singular events and words, that are still way milder than what left habitually throws against Bush, GOP and conservatives in general, and now at tea Party too.

As time goes by TPM becomes more crude. Does it mean that their moderate visitors and supporters desert them, and TPM is left with the tin foil brigade, or did they sell out a couple of years ago?

ha - why, yes, i do. does that mean i am sane and safe to meet for lunch? she is the cutest 6-month-old beagle you've ever seen. and i would seriously love to show you and meade my charming southern town. this website will give you a feel for it. the speakers at the tea party shouldn't color your idea of greenville.

Maybe a person needs to talk to government the way we talk to very small children. Even in situations that are not entirely set in stone it works best to express things in an absolute way. "Maybe later if..." is the same as a promise.

See, now that George Bush has been out of power for a couple of years, the Left and their outriders in the Propaganda Ministry (also called the Mainstream Media) want people to forget how the Left consistently described Bush as Hitler, or worse than Hitler, or a traitor, or responsible for 9/11, or a war criminal. People even made assassination fantasies about him.

HOWEVER, the public is tired of bashing Bush, and it's getting old. Bush has been gone almost two years, and the public has cast Bush into its memory. The Left knows this, so it is casting about for a new Goldstein figure for its Minute of Hate. The relentless Enemy of The People Campaign against Sarah Palin may be backfiring, slowly but surely, as people realize that Palin isn't the monster the Left cast her as.

Meantime, as Daffyd ab Hugh pointed out in one of his posts several months ago on Hot Air, the TEA Party has developed into the leading edge of a Popular Front, which the Left understands to be a mortal threat to their power. Genuine grassroots opposition to Leftwing national socialism must be destroyed by any means necessary fair or foul. Thus, they wave the Klan sheet in the hopes of blunting the rise of the TEA party.

Meade said... "Meade was looking at the original document, which you can see here in facsimile form. The word "Article" is used for the first ten amendments (the Bill of Rights)."

Apology accepted.

Stick around, kiddo... I'll teach you everything I know about the Constitution."

Right, and they were all about Natural Law-- Natural God given rights that the government cannot infringe. Natural Born Citizens are a concept of Natural Law also. Are you as clueless about that concept as your betrothed and Volokh? "Those born in a country of PARENTSSSS who are it's citizens". Obama's father was never a citizen, much less at the time Obama 2 was born. Do you care that we have a Usurper, installed with the help of a treasonous congress and foreign money in the WH.

I was going to offer explain why that was a silly argument to make, but I've decided it is a better use of my time management skills to just quote it again, in case anyone missed it. :)"

Don't give it another thought Rev. This discussion is already way past your radar anyway.

We have long put it to rest that it does appear 1 time in the authors and inventors sentencebut that is it.

The point, and let me try ONE MORE TIME for those slow afoot, is that as Synova noted "no" is used often but limited not at all. The definition of limited as applied here grew from debate, if in court or in the federalist papers or the street corner and my point is limited is moveable and not absolute - by definition and progress. And then I opined that limited might change over time - something that the Tea People might not enjoy - denoting a relationship between the feds and the states that might have a bit of give and take to it...

But I suspect that is past your pay scale. Shall we go back to "pull my thumb"?

So Alpha... did you check out Zombie time? You'll have to watch your eyes with bleach after. But we all know how terrible those Tea Partiers are... saw one with a biker jacket standing next to the pseudo-Amish homeschoolers.

I particularly liked the photo of the half-eaten Palestinian baby picture at a protest in Berkeley.

Put that right to life van in Madison all to shame, and not *just* because an actual child was holding the poster.

Having such different standards of what is "awful" is clearly hypocrisy.

I know of no other way to describe your post other than: "The routine has two performers pretending to meet for the first time, with one of them becoming highly agitated over the utterance of particular words. Names and cities (such as Niagara Falls) have been used as the trigger, which then sends the unbalanced person into a state of mania; the implication is that the words have an unpleasant association in the character's past. While the other performer merely acts bewildered, the crazed actor relives the incident, uttering the words, "Slowly I turned...step by step...inch by inch...," as he approaches the stunned onlooker. Reacting as if this stranger is the object of his rage, the angry actor begins hitting or strangling him, until the screams of the victim shake him out of his delusion. The actor then apologizes, admitting his irrational reaction to the mention of those certain words. This follows with the victim innocently repeating the words, sparking the insane reaction all over again."